EU/Kroatien

The ninth meet­ing of the Acces­sion Con­fer­ence with Croa­t­ia at Deputy lev­el was held today in Brus­sels. In the light of the posi­tions of the Par­ties, the Con­fer­ence was able to open Chap­ter 13 — Fish­eries and Chap­ter 27 — Envi­ron­ment, which are very demand­ing chap­ters in the acces­sion process and require a lot of prepa­ra­tion.

The EU under­lined that on all these chap­ters, mon­i­tor­ing of progress in the align­ment with and imple­men­ta­tion of the acquis would con­tin­ue through­out the nego­ti­a­tions. The Union will, if nec­es­sary, return to these chap­ters at an appro­pri­ate moment.

Details on the spe­cif­ic chap­ters are pro­vid­ed below:

Chap­ter 13 — Fish­eries On the basis of the nego­ti­at­ing posi­tion of Croa­t­ia for this chap­ter, the Union has close­ly exam­ined Croatia’s gen­er­al state of pre­pared­ness in this area. Tak­ing into account Croatia’s present state of prepa­ra­tions — and on the under­stand­ing that Croa­t­ia will con­tin­ue to make progress in the align­ment with and imple­men­ta­tion of the acquis — the EU under­lined the main issues regard­ing the bench­marks to be met by Croa­t­ia for the pro­vi­sion­al clo­sure of the chap­ter, name­ly:

Croa­t­ia ensures suf­fi­cient admin­is­tra­tive and oper­a­tional capac­i­ties at all lev­els, in par­tic­u­lar in order to dis­charge prop­er­ly its future respon­si­bil­i­ties in terms of inspec­tion and con­trol, includ­ing the set­ting up of a satel­lite-based ves­sel mon­i­tor­ing sys­tem, and achieves sub­stan­tial progress with regard to fleet man­age­ment and catch and land­ing reg­is­tra­tion.

Croa­t­ia adopts a new law on struc­tur­al mea­sures, mar­ket mea­sures and State aid ful­ly aligned with the acquis.

Croa­t­ia adopts an insti­tu­tion­al frame­work for the imple­men­ta­tion of the Euro­pean Fish­eries Fund includ­ing the for­mal des­ig­na­tion of insti­tu­tion­al struc­tures (with spe­cif­ic tasks and respon­si­bil­i­ties) for the oper­a­tional pro­gramme.

The EU and Croa­t­ia also con­sid­ered pro­pos­als for dero­ga­tions and tran­si­tion­al mea­sures con­cern­ing resource and fleet man­age­ment, struc­tur­al mea­sures, mar­ket pol­i­cy and state aid.

Fur­ther­more the Euro­pean Union under­lined that it would devote par­tic­u­lar atten­tion to mon­i­tor­ing all spe­cif­ic issues men­tioned in its com­mon posi­tion, with a view to ensur­ing Croatia’s admin­is­tra­tive and con­trol capac­i­ty and its capac­i­ty to com­plete legal align­ment in all the areas under this chap­ter. The Union will close­ly mon­i­tor Croatia’s progress in this chap­ter through­out the nego­ti­a­tions. The Union will, if nec­es­sary, return to this chap­ter at an appro­pri­ate moment.

Chap­ter 27 — Envi­ron­ment On the basis of the nego­ti­at­ing posi­tion of Croa­t­ia for this chap­ter, the Union has close­ly exam­ined Croatia’s gen­er­al state of pre­pared­ness in this area. Tak­ing into account Croatia’s present state of prepa­ra­tions — and on the under­stand­ing that Croa­t­ia will con­tin­ue to make progress in the align­ment with and imple­men­ta­tion of the acquis — the EU under­lined the main issues regard­ing the bench­marks to be met by Croa­t­ia for the pro­vi­sion­al clo­sure of the chap­ter, name­ly:

Croa­t­ia adopts leg­is­la­tion aimed at trans­pos­ing the acquis in the field of water qual­i­ty, notably the new Water Act and the new Water Man­age­ment Financ­ing Act and makes fur­ther sig­nif­i­cant progress in leg­isla­tive align­ment in this sec­tor by adopt­ing imple­ment­ing leg­is­la­tion.

Croa­t­ia adopts leg­is­la­tion aimed at trans­pos­ing the acquis in the field of indus­tri­al pol­lu­tion con­trol and risk man­age­ment and ensures that def­i­n­i­tions, notably relat­ed to instal­la­tions, are aligned with the acquis.

Croa­t­ia con­tin­ues its align­ment with the acquis in the remain­ing sec­tors of this chap­ter and demon­strates that it will be ful­ly pre­pared to ensure the imple­men­ta­tion and enforce­ment of the EU require­ments at the date of the acces­sion.

Croa­t­ia con­tin­ues capac­i­ty build­ing of the admin­is­tra­tive bod­ies at all lev­els, includ­ing inspec­tion ser­vices, in line with the Action Plan, fur­ther improves coor­di­na­tion of work and demon­strates that all appro­pri­ate admin­is­tra­tive struc­tures will be in place a good time before acces­sion to enable imple­men­ta­tion and enforce­ment of the acquis in all sec­tors of this chap­ter.

Fur­ther­more the Euro­pean Union under­lined that it would devote par­tic­u­lar atten­tion to mon­i­tor­ing all spe­cif­ic issues men­tioned in its com­mon posi­tion, with a view to ensur­ing Croatia’s admin­is­tra­tive capac­i­ty, its capac­i­ty to com­plete legal align­ment in all the areas under this chap­ter, as well as fur­ther progress in imple­men­ta­tion. The Union will close­ly mon­i­tor Croatia’s progress in this chap­ter through­out the nego­ti­a­tions. The Union will, if nec­es­sary, return to this chap­ter at an appro­pri­ate moment.

Since the start of the nego­ti­a­tions 3 Octo­ber 2005, thir­ty chap­ters have been opened, of which sev­en­teen have been pro­vi­sion­al­ly closed. Fur­ther Acces­sion Con­fer­ences will be planned, as appro­pri­ate, in order to take the process for­ward.